Three separate incidents at the Nagoya Asian Games — a confiscated 'Taiwan' towel, a badminton match pushed to past midnight, and North Korea skipping the post-match line-up — fed a wave of criticism aimed at the organizers and at Japan's handling of politically sensitive neighbors.
South Korea's anthem failed to play before a women's handball match at the Nagoya Asian Games, and organizers then suspended anthems across all events — a day after North Korea's anthem was mistakenly played at a men's hockey match involving South Korea. Before the men's basketball final, the South Korean team's bus never showed, cancelling their morning practice. With lodging, transport and sound problems piling up, Japanese reaction split between dismay at 'a national embarrassment' and suspicion that the run of Korea-linked mishaps was deliberate, while a minority blamed outsourcing and told others to stop the sneering.
A camera drone filming the Asian Games light-up crashed into Nagoya City Hall's west annex on September 17 with no flight plan filed, prompting a police probe. Coming right after the wrong national anthem played at a hockey match, it fed a wave of mockery about the event's shambolic management.
A man was dragged from his car in Nagoya and another was robbed in the street in Toyama within a day of each other. The pairing spread as 'real-life GTA,' though the suspects' nationalities are not confirmed and the cases are separate.